


To Be Esteemed

by kaci3PO



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen, Waking Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5043547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaci3PO/pseuds/kaci3PO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” – Proverbs 22:1 (NIV)</p>
<p>Or:</p>
<p><em>The first thing Kieren is aware of is his name. It comes to him with a jolt, piercing through the fog of nothingness to pull him into awareness. It turns him from a </em>nothing<em> into a </em>someone<em> all at once and he marvels at how good it feels to have it. He has a name. It's a fine one.</em></p>
<p><em>He tries to shake his head to brush away more of the thick cloud that's taken the place of his mind but finds that he can't; it feels like there's a strap around his forehead, his wrists, his ankles. He panics for one blissful moment of confusion before everything </em>else<em> comes back to him, too.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Esteemed

The first thing Kieren is aware of is his name. It comes to him with a jolt, piercing through the fog of nothingness to pull him into awareness. It turns him from a _nothing_ into a _someone_ all at once and he marvels at how good it feels to have it. He has a name. It's a fine one.

He tries to shake his head to brush away more of the thick cloud that's taken the place of his mind but finds that he can't; it feels like there's a strap around his forehead, his wrists, his ankles. He panics for one blissful moment of confusion before everything _else_ comes back to him, too.

***

"What is your name?"

His head lolls on his shoulder before he manages to blink his eyes open and focus on the woman in front of him. He jerks towards her on instinct, finds that he's shackled to the chair he's sitting in, and watches the deep-seated fear in her eyes as she flinches away from him before regaining her composure just as quickly as she lost it.

"What is your name?" she repeats.

He opens his mouth and licks his lips. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, they don't taste like blood and bile and — other things.

He moans.

It's a hollow sound but it echoes in the small white room until it sounds thunderous in his own ears. The woman throws composure to the wind this time, jumping from her seat and backing away towards the door. She has a hand on the knob before she seems to realize that he's actually trying to speak, and he watches as she slowly reaches for the comm panel on the wall instead.

"Jack," she says after pressing a button on the panel, "I think this one might need more cell stimulants. I don't think the damage has been fully repaired yet."

"Some of them are too far gone," replies the man on the other end of the comm. "Too rotten."

"He understands me," she says firmly. "He just needs stimulants and time."

***

He practices, alone in the room — holding cell — they're keeping him in, clacks his teeth together and lets his tongue trip over the syllables. His mouth curls around his last name soon enough — Walker turning into a long first half that reminds him of the way toddlers speak when they first learn to talk. He doesn't remember his exact age yet, but he thinks he's too old for his speech to be so stunted and he wonders what the hell happened to him during the blackness that made his mouth fail like this.

"Walker" is enough for the doctor to narrow it down, reading off a list of names of people known to have Risen until finally she arrives at "Walker, Kieren," and he nods his desperate approval.

She smiles for the first time since he became aware of her presence and says, "Well, Kieren Walker. Your family is going to be very happy to see you."

He would give the name up and go back to being nothing for that to not happen.

**Author's Note:**

> I've just always wondered what it was like, coming back to yourself for the first time since your death. That moment when they had you in the treatment centre, pumped full of the miracle drug that takes the rabid out of PDS, and for the first time since you died you were something more than the hunger and the violence. When you became _you_ again. This is my brief take on what it might've been like for Kieren in those first few moments of regained humanity.


End file.
